Where was the REAL U.S. Soccer team Friday?

United States goalkeeper Hope Solo celebrates with teammates after winning the gold medal match against Japan at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Thursday, Aug. 9, 2012, in London. The U.S. women's football team won its third straight Olympic gold medal Thursday, beating Japan 2-1 in a rematch of last year's World Cup final and avenging the most painful loss in its history. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
— AP

United States goalkeeper Hope Solo celebrates with teammates after winning the gold medal match against Japan at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Thursday, Aug. 9, 2012, in London. The U.S. women's football team won its third straight Olympic gold medal Thursday, beating Japan 2-1 in a rematch of last year's World Cup final and avenging the most painful loss in its history. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
/ AP

My roommate, bless his heart, offered up some info about the U.S. National soccer team Friday.

“You do know,” he said, “that it’s the B team that’s playing tonight, right?”

I sighed. Of course I knew that. It was the men’s team, after all.

That’s right – America’s true soccer stars were nowhere to be found at Qualcomm Stadium Friday night, but that had nothing to do with the meaningless nature of the game. Our country’s most-celebrated shin-guard sporters were absent in the friendly versus Guatemala, but not because they were in need of any rest.

The U.S. Men’s National Team may contain soccer’s fastest and strongest – but it doesn’t have the biggest. Nope, in this country, the beautiful game belongs to the fairer sex.

How long this will continue to be true, I don’t know, but it’s been the case for a good 14 years now. And you can disregard the fact that the men routinely outdraw the women in World Cup qualifying or exhibitions on domestic soil.

Watching a team – as more than 20,000 fans at the Q did Friday – is one thing. Embracing one with every square inch of your soul is quite another.

Now, if you are die-hard-core men’s soccer enthusiast who can break down every cap of…hang on a sec…Mix Diskerud's career, you may be clenching your fists in disagreement right now. But walk into a sports bar and ask a random patron to list the finest U.S. men’s soccer players, and your shaking head will soon be nodding.

I asked that very question to fans in the Qualcomm parking lot Friday, and while the first said “I don’t know,” and the second said “David Beckham,” both quickly answered “Mia Hamm,” when I asked about the women.

Granted, Hamm has been retired for nearly a decade now, and most casual sports fans would know Landon Donovan. Nevertheless, such responses do reflect the current state of the U.S. men’s game, whose star power is in desperate need of a charger.

Names such as Hope Solo, Abby Wambach and Alex Morgan mean something in this country. They are as transcendent as Hamm, Brandi Chastain and Julie Foudy were in 1999. Americans were transfixed two years ago when Wambach headed in a last-second goal against Brazil to keep the team’s World Cup hopes alive, and they flooded Twitter a year later when the U.S. beat Canada in the Olympics' finest contest.

What it is about women’s soccer, I don’t know. Female gymnasts, swimmers and softball players have all captivated the American public at some point, but never as collectively and as fervently as the ladies on the pitch.

The 1999 World Cup final vs. China? One of the most iconic moments in American sports. The 2011 final vs. Japan? One of the most devastating. The 2007 semifinal vs. Brazil, when Solo was pulled in favor of 35-year-old Briana Scurry? One of the most bizarre.

But considering the emotional swings featured in each tournament, all were among the most memorable.